Newly Established Medio Putumayo Algodón Regional Conservation Area Contributes Crucial Protection to the Megadiverse Putumayo-Amazonas Landscape

After a process that spanned over a decade, Andes Amazon Fund celebrates the establishment of the Medio Putumayo Algodón Regional Conservation Area (RCA). Medio Putumayo Algodón protects 700,778 acres (283,595 hectares) of Amazonian forests in an area considered a global center of biodiversity: the Putumayo-Amazonas landscape. Home to rare and endangered wildlife including jaguars, river otters, pink dolphins and woolly monkeys, the new regional conservation area aims to protect these species from threats such as illegal gold mining and logging. The establishment was made possible through the leadership and participation of the Indigenous communities adjacent to the RCA, which are represented by the FECONAFROPU, OIMPRA, FECONAMAI, and FECOIBAP Indigenous federations, the leadership of the regional government of Loreto; and the regional environmental agency of Loreto. The area was declared by a supreme decree approved by the national government and signed by the President of Peru.

The newly created regional conservation area is emblematic for its biological and cultural importance and local and international connectivity with other protected areas and Indigenous lands. Medio Putumayo Algodón’s establishment benefits more than 700 people from the Murui (Huitoto), Yaguas, Ocaina, Kukama-Kukamiria, Kichwa, Maijuna, Secoya and Bora Indigenous groups. The new RCA Medio Putumayo Algodón adds a key piece to the massive biocultural corridor in northern Peru that includes dozens of titled native communities, Ampiyacu Apayacu RCA, Maijuna-Kichwa RCA, Güeppí-Sekime National Park, Airo Pai Communal Reserve, Huimeki Communal Reserve and Yaguas National Park. At the same time, Medio Putumayo Algodón’s protection has an international impact, as it helps to safeguard an extensive mosaic of continuous forest that includes the neighboring Predio Putumayo Indigenous Reserve across the Colombian border.

Biodiversity

Within the RCA, two important Peruvian tributaries of the Putumayo, the Algodón River and the Quebrada Mutún, meander through lowland forests that stretch to the horizon. The Putumayo River in turn feeds into the mighty Amazon River. The rivers present in the RCA harbor high biodiversity; according to the Field Museum of Chicago’s Rapid Biological inventory of the Medio Putumayo Algodon RCA (2016) there are estimated to be at least 3,000 vascular plant, 550 fish, 110 amphibian, 100 reptile, 500 bird and 160 mammal species in the regional conservation area.

The new conservation area is also known to contain more than 40 species of plants and animals considered of special conservation interest at the global level according to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), including the endangered giant river otter (Pteronura brasiliensis) and the vulnerable ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), woolly monkey (Lagothrix lagotricha), lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris), and Goeldi’s monkey (Callimico goeldi).

The RCA also contributes significantly to mitigating the effects of climate change as the area contains carbon-rich peatland swamps and upland forests.

Ensuring connectivity through environmental stewardship in the Putumayo-Amazonas landscape

The interest in formally conserving the area began in the 1990s, as the area spanning Medio Putumayo Algodón was identified by local community members, the Peruvian government and environmental organizations as extremely biodiverse and important for communities surrounding it. Starting in 2015, Andes Amazon Fund began to support an initiative to establish a regional conservation area via local NGO Instituto del Bien Común (IBC) with the aim of guaranteeing the protection of the rich forests of the Putumayo river basin. Finally, on June 5, 2025, the interest of the communities surrounding the protected area in conserving these forests materialized with the establishment of the Medio Putumayo Algodón Regional Conservation Area by Supreme Decree of the Peruvian government.

At the same time, the area has a great cultural importance. Sixteen titled Indigenous communities live adjacent to the RCA, which are represented by the FECONAFROPU, OIMPRA, FECONAMAI, and FECOIBAP Indigenous federations. Their continuous participation in the area’s creation process was critical to ensure that the RCA will benefit the well-being of their communities for the long term. Local populations are conscious of the threat of the erosion of their culture over time, and the Medio Putumayo Algodón RCA represents an opportunity for them to shore up and revitalize their cultural identity, allowing them to sustainably hunt and fish while carrying out traditional cultural practices within the RCA. The importance of the area to the local population is reflected in their approval of its creation in the free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) process.

It is also important to mention that the area’s creation was an avenue for the local Indigenous communities to have their territorial rights recognized through both the initial titling and formal expansion of their lands as part of the process to define the RCA’s limits. Andes Amazon Fund supported these titling and expansion efforts in coordination with its partner Instituto del Bien Común (IBC) along with other allied organizations.

Moving forward, the neighboring communities will play a critical role in the management of the RCA, based on a co-management model with the Loreto Regional Government. Therefore the management of this area aims to ensure the continuity of the ecosystems which support the livelihoods of these communities, such as maintaining local fisheries as a primary source of income.

Avoiding environmental degradation in a region important for Amazonian rivers and forests

With Medio Putumayo Algodon RCA’s establishment, it is estimated that the loss of tens of thousands of hectares of primary forest could be avoided in the next 20 years. In the Putumayo-Amazonas landscape, illegal logging and gold mining are threats to the ecosystems and the health of local communities. 

As Gervinson Perdomo Chavez, former leader of the Puerto Franco Indigenous community, says: “We hope that this RCA will bring a benefit to our communities. We will be able to take care of our forest, we are going to monitor our forests, so that outsiders do not enter our territory, to be able to avoid the extraction of wood and gold that harms us a lot.” 

The Medio Putumayo Algodón Regional Conservation Area, together with the Ampiyacu Apayacu RCA, Yaguas National Park and the proposed Bajo Putumayo Communal Reserve will protect the megadiverse forests that are home to unique plants and animals that only inhabit between the Putumayo and Amazonas Rivers. With the establishment of this new regional conservation area – the fifth in the department of Loreto – the regional government and local communities are demonstrating their commitment to the expansion of the Putumayo biological and cultural cross-border corridor. 

Freddy Ferreyra, specialist at the Instituto del Bien Comun mentions: “The biological corridor is an initiative of the indigenous communities of the area and civil society organizations of both Peru and Colombia; it is a binational initiative. The Medio Putumayo Algodón RCA is part of a mosaic of natural areas and indigenous territories.”

Megan MacDowell, Andes Amazon Fund’s Executive Director adds: “The establishment of Medio Putumayo Algodón is a decade-long effort led by local communities and civil society organizations like Instituto del Bien Común to conserve this important keystone in a large tri-national corridor of some of the most intact forests in the Amazon. The protagonism of the surrounding Indigenous communities in advancing the protected area’s creation shows us the real value of locally driven initiatives and will help ensure the success of the protected area for the long-term.”

Acknowledgements:

The Medio Putumayo Algodón Regional Conservation Area was established through the leadership and participation of the departmental government of Loreto, the regional environmental agency of Loreto, surrounding communities, local Indigenous federations, and Peru’s National Service of Natural Protected Areas with support from Instituto del Bien Común, Andes Amazon Fund, Wyss Foundation, Art into Acres, Re:wild, Bezos Earth Fund, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Sociedad Peruana de Derecho Ambiental, Conservation International, and the Field Museum of Chicago.